February 23, 2014 - Reflections on Romans 4-7

Tried to sleep tonight, no luck so far.  Too much going through my head.  I finally changed the oil in my car - a 2006 Jetta that I bought 15 months and 20K miles ago.  It wasn't as much of a headache as I had thought it would be, and the engine sounds better now.  First time I've noticed that after an oil change.  Hopefully it will stop dripping oil, too.

We got low on freezer jam, so Katrina bought some strawberries this week.  Tonight we assembled everyone to make jam.  We had Libby and Jake pulling stems off, Christian slicing the tops off, Aria removing bad parts and slicing the berries in half, Katrina crushing the berries, and me mixing batches.  What used to take us 4 hours of hard labor was over in less than an hour.  The kids were busy for 30 minutes, and Katrina and I finished the process.  Now we've got another gallon of strawberry jam for the freezer, 6 months until we need to do it again.  The latest version of pectin products removes lemon juice and corn syrup from the recipe, making the process much faster and simpler.

The kids spent much of yesterday and all this afternoon making a video.  Aria has a new iPad mini, and she's using iMovie to edit.  We watched it tonight and it was hilarious.  Jake and Libby did an astonishing job with their lines and acting, and Aria's directing and editing was fantastic.

After the movie, I read a bit of "Insurgent", my current popcorn book.  I have terrible discipline putting them down, and read longer than I had planned.  And then I'd drift off to sleep, and an idea from the book would come into my half-awake dreams, and I'd wake up.  The book is not a peaceful one.  So I gave up.

Time to blog for a few, and aside from the stuff above, my intended topic is to continue reflections on Romans.  So here we are, resuming from Chapter 4, verse 1:
Ch 4
1-5 We're not justified by works, but by faith.
6 David described the blessedness of man.  As a Roman Jew, this has profound meaning for me, and I get it.  As a modern Christian, I consider Psalms and Proverbs both books of artistic beauty.  I don't consider them sources of doctrine.
6-13 Abraham was not justified by the law, because the Jewish law didn't exist for him.  He was justified by faith, and not works.  Paul then makes the point that faith is the original law - Jewish law replaced it later.
14-15 no law = no transgression
16 Paul contrasts Jewish law with Christian faith
17-22 Abraham had faith to do God's will, and that counted to him as righteousness.  Paul goes to the "none doeth good" theme again, but he says later (7:25) that he himself does good sometimes.  Paul's writings are inconsistent if we take them literally; if he has literary license, they're workable.
23-25 We have Abraham's story so we can have faith in the god that raised Jesus from the dead.

Ch 5
1-2 being justified by faith, we have access to grace
3-5 The holy spirit can comfort us in tribulation
6-8 Christ died for sinners
9-11 people who are justified will be saved
12-21 A very lengthy section to say, simply, "Sin came into the world through Adam.  Sin no longer rules the world because of Christ."  He says it forwards and backwards and sideways a couple times, but it's always the same.

Ch 6
1-4 Baptism is a symbol of death and burial.  Once baptized, we walk in newness of life.
5 Because we are baptized together with Christ (we die together) thus we will also be resurrected together.  This beings us closer to being like him - we'll be resurrected like he was.
6-7 we bury our sins at baptism and sin doesn't follow us any more
8-11 Paul admonishes us to be dead to sin, but alive in Christ.
12-14 You are free from the law (law = death because none are perfect), and now you live under grace.  So be good.
15-18 We are servants of death or righteousness.  Once free of sin (baptized), we are servants of righteousness.
19-23 Paul admonishes us to yield our members to holiness and find everlasting life.

Ch 7
1-4 law is the first husband who is now dead.  Christ is the 2nd husband, but it's okay to be with Christ because the law is dead.  It doesn't make us unfaithful Jews.
5-6 the law has control until we are converted, then we're new
7 there's nothing wrong with the law.  It's a good teaching tool.
8-13 law = sin = death
14-24 sometimes I mess up when I know better.  This is Paul going through the torturous process of dealing with his own dual roles - a flawed human, and a representative of Jesus.
20 he claims here that if he does something bad that he doesn't want to do, it's sin that does it, not him.  I don't understand this claim at all.  We all make mistakes despite our best intentions.  To say that it's not me that does those things, but it's sin instead, simply dodges accountability.
25 I serve God with my mind, but my flesh serves sin.

The themes in these chapters revolve around the law and accountability.  I really enjoyed him going back to Abraham and pointing out that Abraham and Christians shared a belief system in some ways.  There is a lot of text about doing the right things.  It is also increasingly clear that "works" in Paul's parlance means obeying Jewish law.  They are synonyms so far in the text.  "Doing good" or being a "doer of the word" is a good things to Paul, and he uses different words for that vs obeying the law.  To this point in the epistle, Paul is very clear that faith gives us access to grace which saves us.  But he's also very clear that those who do good will like the judgment better than those who don't.  He hasn't brought those ideas together yet.  I feel for Paul at this point - he's trying to lay Christianity bare for Jews like him, and it's not as simple as he'd like it to be.

Now for another attempt at sleep.